Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Solstice Illuminated: A Year of Sky
NASA ^ | December 22, 2015 | (see photo credit)

Posted on 12/22/2015 1:30:47 PM PST by SunkenCiv

Explanation: Can you find which day is the winter solstice? Each panel shows one day. With 360 movie panels, the sky over (almost) an entire year is shown in time lapse format as recorded by a video camera on the roof of the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, California. The camera recorded an image every 10 seconds from before sunrise to after sunset and from mid-2009 to mid-2010. A time stamp showing the local time of day is provided on the lower right. The videos are arranged chronologically, with July 28 shown on the upper left, and January 1 located about half way down. In the videos, darkness indicates night, blue depicts clear day, while gray portrays pervasive daytime cloud cover. Many videos show complex patterns of clouds moving across the camera's wide field as that day progresses. The initial darkness in the middle depicts the delayed dawn and fewer daylight hours of winter. Although every day lasts 24 hours, nighttime lasts longest in the northern hemisphere in December and the surrounding winter months. Therefore, finding the panel with the longest night will locate the day of winter solstice -- which happens to be today in the northern hemisphere. As the videos collectively end, sunset and then darkness descend first on the winter days just above the middle, and last on the mid-summer near the bottom.

December 22, 2015

(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; astronomy; jethrotull; science; solstice; solsticebells; wintersolstice
[Video Credit and Copyright: Ken Murphy (MurphLab); Music: Ariel (Moby)]

1 posted on 12/22/2015 1:30:47 PM PST by SunkenCiv
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: brytlea; cripplecreek; decimon; bigheadfred; KoRn; Grammy; steelyourfaith; Mmogamer; dayglored; ...
The Big One
The Medium One

2 posted on 12/22/2015 1:32:41 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

I see the sailboat.


3 posted on 12/22/2015 2:16:04 PM PST by EQAndyBuzz (Jews for Cruz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Click here for explanation


4 posted on 12/22/2015 2:57:35 PM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Men need a reason to shop. Women need a place.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson